I like Ubuntu

[Alex Zbyslaw]

Dag-Erling Smørgrav wrote:

>doug at safeport.com writes:
>  
>
>>First my experience with [Free]BSD as a server completely mirrors
>>Dag-Erling's observation, it [mostly] just works. I started with BSDI
>>switching to FreeBSD around 3.5. I think it is also true that
>>depending on your hardware a FreeBSD workstation or laptop can be a
>>bit of a challenge.
>>    
>>
>
>My issues with FreeBSD as a desktop mostly come from the difficulty of
>installing software and keeping it up-to-date: 'pkg_add -r' and
>'portupgrade -aP' simply can't hold a candle to 'apt-get install' and
>'apt-get dist-upgrade'.
>  
>
How does apt-get compare to something like yum/up2date on FC/RHEL?  I.e. 
is there something that makes apt-get better?

My main issue with all the RedHat OSes is that you are effectively stuck 
with whatever version of packages was "combined" to make a particular 
release.  So if the machine you have came with say postfix 2.0, your 
stuck with that for the lifetime of the OS.  If you suddenly have a need 
for 2.2, you can try using src rpms, but somehow they never seem to be 
available for your particular OS version, and whether the ones for a 
later OS version compile or not is hit-and-miss.  Sure, it's dead easy 
to yum update say postfix 2.0 to postfix 2.0+some security fix, but 
that's just not enough for me.

I resent having to upgrade the OS to get up-to-date packages that have 
no specific relationship to anything I understand as the OS.  That's 
especially a problem for ISP-rented servers, where upgrading the OS is a 
matter of having to get a new server, or taking your life in your hands 
and trying a "yum" update of the OS.  But even for a "desktop", it's 
just far more work than I believe should be required.

FreeBSD ports/packages are not perfect, but at least I can update 
third-party software without upgrading the OS.

--Alex